Also notable is the CRASS promulgation of vegetarian diet, which caused thousands of Punk “anarchists” to identify with vegetarianism. For nearly fifty years, the CRASS experiment with collective living on a farm producing regular crops of vegetables, still exists as “Dial House.” Penny is an amazing improvisatory cook as well as a baker of hearty home-made bread.
“Performer, philosopher, writer, poet, and provocateur Penny Rimbaud straddled both the hippie counter-culture of the 60s and the Punk era of the late 70s. He was born in 1943 into a world of social privilege as Jeremy John Ratter to upper-middle-class parents. He attended public school, then went on to art school—where he met Crass artist Gee Vaucher.”—The Quietus
“In the late Sixties, two young artists rented a tumbledown cottage near Epping in Essex. Inspired by Lennon, Kerouac, Camus, RD Laing and other counter-culturals, they changed their names, becoming Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher…Out of Dial House would emerge a series of radical creative projects, the best known of which is the Punk band Crass. And the message was: Do it yourself. Take responsibility. You are in charge of your own life. There’s no authority but Yourself. With their fantastic symbols and art and straight-forward rage, Crass found a huge audience.”—The Independent
